Shirin

Shirin is a literary novel that moves between Afghanistan and suburban Sydney, tracing the long shadow of violence across memory, exile, and survival. It follows a Hazara refugee living under her father's control in Merrylands as she navigates one decisive year from a childhood marked by the imposition of silence to a girlhood shaped by risk, defiance, and love. Shirin's protagonist, 'Aghai', finds strength and support in her own imagination, in the defiant wisdom of poet Omar Khayyam, and in her bond with Kylie, a new friend who reflects both the present and the echoes of her past. Shirin interweaves domestic coercion with collective catastrophe. Through stark, uncompromising images the novel bears witness to massacre, exile, and the enduring trauma carried by refugees long after they reach places of supposed safety. Yet Shirin is not consumed by horror alone. It is a novel of endurance: of writing against erasure, of love against fear, of naming as an act of survival. Shirin examines the moral authority of doctrines that legitimise control and silence. It asks urgent questions about complicity, distance, and who is allowed to speak within cultures shaped by faith, tradition, and power. At once a coming-of-age narrative, a forbidden love story, and a moral reckoning, the novel offers an unflinching yet humane portrayal of resilience, courage, and the small victories that sustain life under pressure. Shirin illuminates experiences rarely represented in Australian literature, inviting readers to witness, reflect upon and find connections with the lives of those whose stories are too often silenced.